Servings of Mania.

2019-02-18T10:34:00.000+05:30

a piece of barbed wire that runs
between this world and that world
on the other side there is a tree
leafless lifeless broken
sometimes a bird comes and sits on one of its branches
trying to sing,
trying to bring it back to life
hopeful for a short while
before it gives up and flies away
what is dead once is dead forever
an old woman in a village once said to me
that if you curse a tree enough, it will die
i wonder how much hate it took to kill a flowering tree like this one
maybe it's the intensity of the hatred that kills and not the time spent hating
if you hated someone enough you could invisibly choke them,
slowly, one glance at a time, one word at a time,
even if they were under the same roof
look at it with enough dislike
and it would take not long for it to wither
build a barbed wire fence all around it
so it wouldn't be able to grow
it chokes on itself,
one small root at a time
using up whatever quota of happiness it has been feeding on
until one day
it gives up
and just lets go of its soul
the bird knows not
that no amount of singing will ever wake it up
for when freedom is but an illusion
how can I find the will to go on living?

2019-02-18T10:29:00.000+05:30

Sylvia Plath put her head in an oven at the age of 30
But you don't have an oven
because radiation can kill, you see?
And you hate shutting your kitchen with blinds and shutters
so anyone could look in, and try to stop
if you were trying to pop like popcorn in your kitchen
There are the celing fans but the dust on the blades would probably deter you
and make you cough so hard you wouldn't be able to tie the knot
unless you fell down from the ladder
But no one dies of falls from two-step ladders
The balcony is too pretty to contemplate jumping off
What if you were wearing old underwear and everyone found out?
So for now
I will just slit my wrists and
lie low
until someone finds me
Maybe after the odour wafts out of the house
and mingles
with the smells of cooking
from other people's houses
they would wonder where the stench was coming from
and comment on it
blame the housekeeping
or some poor innocent neighbour
and then after some days frantically try to find the source
until they realise no one has gone in and out of this house for days
so they bang open the door and call twenty people and break it down
and upon finding the corpse exclaim
'Oh, but she seemed normal when I saw her!'

2019-02-18T10:28:00.002+05:30

stuffing my chaos
into a little packet of quiet
pushing my thoughts
into a tiny sachet of silence
hoarding the voices in my head
in the freezer in the basement
fermenting my opinions
in fragile bottles of shutup
there, I made my ferris wheel from all the wildness in my head
and the wantonness of my heart
round and round it spins
and spins
spins to the top
hanging over the world
until it snaps
one day
it snaps
scattering me
one piece at a time

2019-02-18T10:27:00.004+05:30

The stupidity of
spending money
on things
you do not need
or on things
that are needed to impress others.
At the end of this life
we are all going to end up
with maggots crawling in and out of our eyes
and nostrils
and butthole
and mouth
whether we wore Jimmy Choo or Bata
in our living life.

2019-02-18T10:27:00.002+05:30

305 days ago we drank a toast to our friendship through our phones
little gadgets that reveal what they are supposed to hide
and hide what they are supposed to reveal
297 days later we swore eternal love
through the same beeping machines
a total of 1614 nudes, quotes and amorous declarations later
a total of 500 cross country car drive kilometres later
today we sit at this diner and agree
regretfully
that love is indeed
as blind as a bat

2019-02-18T10:26:00.003+05:30

a friend lost her baby, he was stillborn
which means he was perfect and ready but without a beating heart
she sent me twenty photos of him, lifeless and cold,
but in her heart he lived and suckled at her breast just like all the other babies born that day at the hospital
my grandmother told me I was a blue baby
which means I must have put my mother through a lot of trouble right from the moment I was conceived.
Married at 19, living in an alien land with its alien tongue, pregnant at 20,
her nausea must have been awful
she must have cried on nights that she was depressed.
Even though my father is a caring man,
i am sure they must have had their bad days.
in her ninth month I must have constricted her arteries, veins
so that when she was rushed to the hospital
after a long wait for a car, probably an ambassador
she must have creased her forehead with worrylines,
when the doctors discovered her blood pressure was way too high,
she must have prayed to a God that didn't care.
i imagine my grandma, frowning, hand on chest like she always does when she is worrying,
at the thought of her inexperienced, unprepared daughter being readied to be cut up across her belly
my mother still carries the scar and for a long time as a child,
I was repelled by the flesh rising on both sides of it
my grandma calls me on the phone and tells of how I was blue and lifeless and cold too
so when the doctors hung me upside down, holding me by my feet, slapping my behind twice and then gave up hope
my grandma pushed them away, grabbed me and slapped me in fury like i was some animal that had injured her
so that when I finally cried, but she still went on slapping, the doctors told her Amma stop, stop Amma, what are you doing?
so when she weeps over the phone and tells me how can i ever forgive myself for hitting you like that when the blood hadn't even dried on you,
i blink back hot tears and say, it was for my own good, you see for all that my young mother did, it was you who gave me life
perhaps that is why I am immune to people's condemnation,
or have a high pain threshold,
well, when you start off life like that,
with so much pain all around,
you just create your own shell

2019-02-18T10:26:00.000+05:30

in a noisy train when the whole world is passing by,
you lie alone listening to the cacophany of a thousand thoughts
the panic rises slowly in the pit of your stomach
the shadow that creeps over your shoulder whispering 'you have no one'
so you fight it
and fill your mind with things that you would do,
could do with that someone you hold dear
and so you say stupid stuff
desperate words,
slicing open your insides and putting it out in a text
and you want to say 'i miss you and wish you were here'
but you say something stupid like 'i want to count the stars with you'
and they delight
and send hearts
and speak of some starry night
and how they spent it in the company of someone really wonderful,
but that wonderful is not you,
and you feel stupid and silly because all you thought of was you and him and him and you,
but now there are ghosts of people past,
and moments past,
and you will never be able to snuff them out from his life,
so you lie alone and think of that someone
and when the tears seep out
you sigh
and you lie alone in that noisy train
listening to the cacophany of a thousand thoughts

inside

2019-02-18T10:18:00.003+05:30

when did I grow so large
that now there is no space
for me
in the crowded rooms
of your crowded mind?

and when I do find myself in that house of yours,
I can never find a place, a nook,
to pause and collect myself?

all these ghosts from your past, who go in and out of these rooms, and linger in the hallways and whisper in the corridors,
and you tell them hush, now, she comes,
and they all turn and smirk,

since when did I become so unwelcome so as to make you come running all the way to the front door whispering 'not now, my dear, there is a party going on'

once upon a time it was just me in the whole wide world that is the inside of your head, but now I am left jostling for space,
trying to carve out my initials
like lovers do on rocks and tree trunks and random places in streets

so I sit at the foyer by the shoerack
forgotten till you call me in

A dog and a death

2018-10-10T19:13:00.000+05:30

once one of the eighteen dogs my grandmother adopted
got trapped in a snare meant for rabbits
we saw it coming back to our house swaying
and we thought it had drunk toddy again,
at the liquor shop at the corner where the drunken men lovingly caressed these animals and fed them chicken, fish, mutton and let them drink for free,
but then grandma screamed and I saw what she saw
its neck cut, leaving a thick trail of blood, swaying with pain and half crawling, it came towards us
my grandmother left what she was doing, washing vegetables I think, and ran to the mangy dog as if her life depended on it,
calling her "my princess, my darling", shrieking "who did this to you" and lamenting
it collapsed as soon as it saw her as if it had mustered that little energy
only to reach her lap
there it lay, its neck mangled and my grandma's sari bloodied
she crooned into its ears as it lay looking into her eyes
it never ceases to amaze me how much animals love us
that they were willing to crawl in pain only to catch a last glimpse of us
after sometime, it got up and walked on wobbly legs, still bleeding, still in pain but now with its head up,
to a corner of the outhouse at the back
"don't go there", grandma said, as she got up, "she deserves to die with dignity"
an hour later it lay rigid, devoid of life, stiff, but peaceful
if only as humans we had the same choice
I remember seeing a great uncle when he lay sick, how he had sores on his back from laying on the hard cot all the time
how ants had bitten his toes off and scabs covered his legs
how the stench of urine permeated the room, his clothes, my clothes, everything
and how he looked away while asking his wife for the bed pan
and when he passed away they said he didn't want to go
he was afraid and thrashed in fear and tried to fight death
and grabbed at his wife's hair and hands
and clawed at her face
while she wept and said 'go, go now'
how sad and how horrible that even a dog makes peace with its ending
but we as humans are full of regrets and guilt, all our lives, until the very end

Of fathers and daughters

2018-10-10T19:11:00.002+05:30

my friend's father passed away a few days ago
with a newborn in her arms how could she come all the way to India to bid farewell to the man
she loved
sometimes fathers teach their daughters the worst things
they teach their daughters to trust men
and they fill their daughters' minds with the dreams that all men will treat them like princesses
so that when life deals a blow and the daughters get men who treat them like trash
they start hating their fathers for making them so gullible
for making them fall in love with the wrong men
this is how fathers trick their daughters
by loving them unconditionally
by putting up with their daughters tantrums
and listening to the words their foolish daughters hurl in a moment of rage for something as simple as not letting them go out to party
fathers trick their daughters
by crying like 'little girls' on the day the daughters get married
and imploring the husbands' families to please forgive their daughters should they do anything foolish
like trying to stand on their own feet
fathers teach their daughters everything that is wrong
like expecting love and respect and admiration and adoration from the men they meet later in life,
as grown up women
and then fathers leave their daughters to the mercy of other men
and when the daughters want them, the fathers are nowhere to be seen
because they are too far away
and we, the daughters, know that telling our fathers about the awful things that happen to us would break their hearts
so we put up with it
and cry in our closets
and bathrooms
and think of why we had fathers who raised us with love and tenderness instead of hatred because now we cannot find men who can come close to loving us like our fathers loved us

A taxi, a birth

2018-09-28T08:34:00.000+05:30

once in Mumbai
I was driven around the city by an autorickshaw driver
whose wife had delivered a baby exactly eleven minutes
before i flagged him down on my way to the embassy
he refused to take money because 'i am very happy today, madam, I am a father, after all these years of trying, finally God has heard my prayers'
so I asked him to take me to see his baby
there in a dirty tiny shed, in a dirty little chawl in a dirty big slum in that dirty miserable city,
his wife lay swollen and exhausted next to a sleeping baby boy, 'he has my color and my wife's beauty' said my friend, the driver, beaming with pride
I tried to ignore his chest that puffed up like a rooster's while everyone around clapped him on his back
congratulating him
as if his five second ejaculation was more important than what
her body did
someone handed me a laddoo and a glass of watery tea and pulled a chair next to the bed where she lay,
after all I was their special guest
'this is for you and for your baby, pls do not refuse' I said
thrusting two thousand rupees into her hand, which she quickly stuffed under the bed
'your husband is very happy, I think' I told her
she looked at me and met my gaze
'he is happy madam,
because
this time it's a
boy'

My shadow and I

2018-09-28T08:33:00.000+05:30

some days
I'm more scared
of my shadow
than all the people in the world
put together
the things it knows
the things it has done
the things it would do
for love
while seeming all innocent
are the things
my nightmares feed on

bees and us

2018-09-10T22:18:00.000+05:30

yesterday I read about a custom in parts of England where you inform the bees staying in your house about the passing away of someone in your family so that they get enough time to mourn the death.
what if someone gave us enough time to mourn the death of our loved ones?
so that when my grandfather passed away of Alzheimer's, when he had deteriorated to the extent that his death was a blessing,
someone could give my mother, his favourite daughter, enough time to mourn
she spent the first nineteen years of her life with him and then the rest married into a distant land,
she never spent a day more than the twenty two days of summer every year when she and her father licked their fingers clean of the lamb curry that my vegetarian grandma would prepare
In the last few years of his life, my mother had no inkling of how destroyed he would be by dementia
so that everytime she visited home she would cry
because he would ask her who she was 'Are you the new maid?'
'yes' she would reply because saying that she was his daughter brought nothing back
'you clean well, I will increase your salary by ten rupees' he would say kindly, retreating into his days of youth
Somedays he would ask her to sit next to him and he would ask 'are you my nurse?'
Other days he would scream at her to get out accusing her of coming into his room to rob him.
Those days my mother cried in a corner, hiding,
wanting to go back to the years before he lost his memory,
so she could spend more time with him relishing food from hotels, walking in the fields, just being together.
I wish someone had told my mother that her father had died happy so she could have mourned properly,
instead of being called in the middle of the night twelve hours before he died
'come quick, your father is slipping away' grandmother wept
I wish someone had told my mother she could mourn for as long as she wanted to,
instead of sweeping regret under the carpet, and spilling guilt onto the floor, and turning her heart into stone.
In a world where even bees are thought of kindly,
I wish someone had been kind to my mother over a death in the family.

This fool swears

2018-08-16T11:18:00.000+05:30

What is the female version of 'Chutiya samajh rakha hain kya?' I wonder.
So when you say that you are now going to a new city
excited about getting to fool around with women left right and centre
while I am supposed to wait here for you
cupping my arms around a fucking diya that has been burning for months now
scorching my fingers from time to time
while I blow on them without letting it bujhafy
because it is the eternal symbol of hope that you will come back to me
like Paro does for Devdas in that pathetic novel
I want to pick up the phone and ask
'kya mere maathe pe chutiya likha hain?'
but that is guys talk
and I don't know what the female equivalent of this is
of course there is the whole pink candy bubblegum word 'fool'
but at this point I m not using sentences like 'do you take me for a fool?'
because for some reason
I want to look you in the eyes
and tell you that
neither do I have any tears left to cry
nor any feelings to spare,
so if you must go,
go quick
and spare me the sentimental crap
but I won't say this to you
for I am busy blowing out stupid Paro's flame for Devdas
because now Paro has a new love interest
and she better not waste her time

reunion

2018-08-07T17:26:00.003+05:30

many years ago in a building under construction, just like this,
in its abandoned skeleton,
we lay in a car tracing letters on the foggy window glass
we fooled ourselves into thinking ours was a love story with a happy forever ending
with your mouth on mine we mumbled words of eternity
a mouthful of possessions, you are mine, I am yours,
silly words like that

some moons ago in a window in my phone screen, you popped up
with entreaties and a mouth full of regrets
bringing back those days and all the conversations we never had
decades of wondering where you were and how I am doing

here we are in each other's phones and it is like
we were never away
picking up conversations from then
like you had just stepped out to throw the trash

on the late evenings that we talk about dharma and the big bang theory and religion and poetry and wars and peace and comets and stars and animals and me and you and us
you in your bed and i in mine
believe me when i tell you
no one has fucked my mind like you do now
so feed me more
and talk until your tongue falls off
and my phone battery is dead
so talk until you are full of me
and i of you

come see me now
instead of telling me you
regretted my loss
come touch me now
instead of telling me you
never stopped wanting me
for here i am
all of me
all for you

Today I want to be a man

2018-08-07T17:25:00.004+05:30

Today I am tired of being a woman
I am tired of being told to cover my breasts with a dupatta
I am tired of being told to sit cross legged, demurely
I am tired of being told to keep my mouth shut and open it only when asked to
I am tired of being told to wear clothes that are modest
I am tired of being told not to drink or swear or put on red lipstick

Today I am tired of being a woman
I am tired of being told not to go out late at night
I am tired of being told to write down the taxi number and driver details and send it to someone back home
I am tired of being told to fast for someone's longevity
I am tired of being given blessings to bear sons
I am tired of being told to learn things that women supposedly do cooking, cleaning, producing children
I am tired of the subtle suggestions at familiy planning
I am tired of being asked why I tied my tubes
I am tired of being asked why I am having a child
I am tired of being told to cover my hair
I am tired of being told to stay outside during my period

Today I am tired of being a woman
I am tired of being leered, ogled at when I am outside
I am tired of being catcalled, commented upon
I am tired of hands brushing against my hips, my butt
I am tired of being desired
I am tired of being called sexy
I am tired of bejng sent sexually suggestive texts

Today I am tired of being a woman
I am tired of the dick pics flooding my inbox
I am tired of the male friends sending out feelers
I am tired of being told to hide my shame, and safeguard my honor

Today I just want to be a man
But how can I, in a land where
even the Goddess
has to be safely guarded behind bars of iron,
How can I,
a mere woman,
hope to be free?

matches

2018-08-07T17:24:00.000+05:30

It was one of those mundane parties where people pout and air kiss each other
where the politically correct jokes are now unfunny
and the same old cheese and wine appears for the fiftieth time
in a party like that, you asked me what my hobbies were
and I said I read
and you got excited and said OMG, I am a reader too.
Seriously, I asked, what do you read?
Oh, all the classics and Sherlock Holmes and Chetan Bhagat and Ashok Banker.
and there I was expecting to talk about Catherine of Aragon and Cromwell and the Medicis and Tipu and the Aghoris and the monks of Tibet and the seven sacred plants of Ayurveda and the billions of years of history of the earth and the throat singers of Mongolia and everything
there i was wanting you to fuck my mind
but all you did was dowse my enthusiasm with your watery vomit of boredom
another time I met another you
and you asked are you kinky?
and i said i am scandalous and risque and dirty
and then we decided to make love
but you undressed me to a chopin score in the background
and then turned off the lights
and made it into a nine course meal the proper way with napkins and bibs and cutlery all arranged in order
this is why I take a step back now
everytime someone says
they share the same hobbies
as mine
while I wonder whether it is wrong of me to expect someone to match my standards

love like this

2018-08-07T17:21:00.001+05:30

I will love you like an ocean in rage
a typhoon in full force
a river in flood
I will love you like a night of rain
and thunder and lightning
I will love you like a tsunami in fury
I will love you until you can't breathe
without me
and you cant breathe
with me

mesaured love

2018-08-07T17:17:00.002+05:30

how do you love with half your heart holding a pair of balancing scales in your hands?
maybe you have never been loved wholly
to be able to give all your love to another
so when you say my love is like a storm
that uproots you one day and places you down in a strange place the next
and that you are fed up of the turmoil it causes
and you don't want any more upheavals
I fail to understand if what you want is a love
that is boringly placid like the waters of an algae ridden lake?
where do people get these ideas from
about how love should be like or not
about how much love to give him and how much love to give her,
or not to give?
tell me who draws the lines here
what if I said love is knowing a train will come rushing out of the tunnel and hit you with full force
and you still want to stand in front of it and get hit,
I have and will,
what if I said love is like knowing there is a chasm that separates you from me
and the only way for me to reach you is to jump into it with both feet from the word go,
I have and will
how do people know when to stop doling out more than what is their measured quantity,
words measured precisely,
only so many 'i miss you's or
only so many 'i love you's
because if you let on more than that, the power will be in their hands, the ones you are supposed to love
since when did love become an ego tussle, where if you showed your vulnerable state of mind you would be deemed powerless
no wonder people go about seeking love all their lives, never finding it
all that you give comes back to you, so why are you afraid to give all of your love?
you see, if you have not been loved by someone who uprooted you today and twirled you around and took you on a whirlwind of emotions,
and then put you down safely in an entirely new place,
you haven't been loved at all
if you love someone,
love them like i love you,
like a river in rage coming down from the glaciers to destroy whole villages,
retreating and coming back the next year
I will wreak havoc in your mind,
and leave you rootless,
but I will love you forever

Clean Balance

2018-08-03T10:53:00.000+05:30

beds are meant to be slept in
but ours are made, tip top
not a wrinkle, not a shallow spot,
there is nothing more disgusting than unmade beds, where people have slept,
hair and other things,
left behind for maids to clean out,
clean beds are just that, clean
like relationships of the owners who leave beds that way,
clean,
how nice to have a clean equation,
you stray, I stray
you leave, I leave
my room, your room
give take, take give
clean, clean everything
equality in all things, divided fifty-fifty
so when the outsiders come and admire our tip top bed,
we scurry out of the room,
because it is too clean for our messy unequated love

seek

2018-07-17T17:34:00.000+05:30

in and out of dingy rooms
in dirty old hotel buildings
where the bathtubs have slimy grime in their cracks
and the sinks are leaking
where the floor sticks to your feet,
she weaves her broken body,
gives it to one and all,
trying to find what people mean by love,
every mouth that she tastes,
is bitter
and every hand that touches her flesh,
is rough
still, she looks for it,
that elusive thing called love,
lyjng on the creaky bed,
she stares at the fan whirring noisily,
beyond some stranger's shoulders,
beyond the frantic pounding of men's bodies inside her,
with her hair fanned out below her,
sometimes pulled,
but never admired,
'do you love me?' she asks the betel chewing man who has started asking for her by name,
the fourth time this month,
he laughs in her face, 'i m giving my love to you, this is love' he breathes into her mouth,
grunts as he releases his stickiness into her,
'this is love, my love' he laughs as he rolls away making for the door
while she rearranges her clothes,
for the next in line
'i am lovable then?'
she asks, but he is already out of the room,
and she waits for the next knock,
the coded tapping,
'someone will find me worthy of love,
just you wait and see'
she mock-scolds the fan, frowning,
and the day passes into night
and the night into day

truth

2018-07-17T17:32:00.003+05:30

she wove fantasies around him
spent nights longing for him
lasted for days on nothing but thoughts of him

when they met - she wanted to
delight in him
savor him
experience with him
talk to him

him?
he fucked her and left

make believe

2018-07-11T18:37:00.002+05:30

you could have been, you would have been,
but in the end you didn't
she hopes you carry a piece of her with you
she hopes you will remember her in times
when you have no one else to think of
how she trembled in your arms and
you gathered her up into a bundle until she was calmed
how she blushed hot inside every time you looked into her eyes
how she looked away for fear the world would hear her thudding heart when you were near
how she moved away quick for fear she would be unable to control herself from flinging into your arms everytime you passed her
but most of all she hopes you will remember how she smiled when you told her things
that you told a hundred others before her, and will tell to a hundred others after her,
how she smiled when she believed all that you told her
give her this, this hope,
this little cheap trinket of hope
that she will be a part of you
even if she isnt
it took her ages to find all the pieces of her heart that broke when you
like all those before you,
stomped on it with iron boots
it took her painstaking hours to fill it's cracks with cheap glue that would melt the moment someone like you came in, blazing like the sun and offering burning passion
so when she looks back at you and smiles
know that it takes her much effort to not let those tears brimming in her eyes, fall
at the sight of you
give her this,
this little trinket of hope.

seduce me like this

2018-07-11T18:36:00.002+05:30

talk to me about nothing
talk to me about everything
tell me things
and I will savor them
tell me what you think of when you can't sleep at nights
tell me why you twiddle your thumb when you can't decide what to watch on TV
tell me about the things that make you happy
and the things that make you scream
let us crawl into each others' minds and get lost
talk to me over hazy rings of smoke
over the steam rising up from cheap hot tea sold in dirty steel tumblers on roadside kiosks
talk to me of the earthworms you squished as a child
talk to me over overflowing beer mugs and I will swing my old monk rum straight bottoms up
talk to me until my ears fall off
and my brain is full of you
and my mouth is full of your words
talk to me till I fall in love with you

not enough

2018-07-11T18:35:00.000+05:30

i wrote for you
but my words were not enough
i sang for you
but my songs were not sweet enough
i tried to make you laugh
but my wit was not humorous enough
i have you all the attention in the world
but it was not enough
i then cried for you
but my tears were not enough
all I wanted were your talks
but for you even that was too much to give
in the end i found you to be too little
and you found me to be too much
so here we are
me, happier
you, more miserable
and i now find that satisfyingly enough